Map/Chart > The Great Lakes & Champlain

Lake St Clair

One of the earliest of Henry Wolsey Bayfield's surveys produces at the same time as his historic survey of Lake Erie.

Chart Information

Reference:

A912

Date

1817-1818

Hydrographer/Surveyor/Artist:

Lieu. Henry Bayfield RN & Lt. H. Renny

Size Of Original:

w 20" x h 18"

Paper Type

Innova Smooth Cotton 315gsm

Further Information

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Chart ID

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Notes

A912

Original

w20" x h18"

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Read the full Chart History here:

This is amongst Bayfield’s earliest works since taking over the Great Lakes survey from William Owen in 1817. Bayfield completed the survey of Lake St. Clair in August 1817, at the same time as he and his companion Lt. H. Renny were surveying Lake Erie (see Heritage Charts A902).

That Bayfield was under a time constraint in the middle of such a large survey of Lake Erie is evident in the note on this chart, in Bayfield’s own hand, that states that: ‘the islands and channels in blue were not sketched by us, but are taken from an old French Plan. The soundings were filled in by the officers of the vessels’. Bayfield was not a man to, normally, rely on the work of others and was indeed regarded for his meticulous work.

Bayfield registers on the survey that the western shore of the lake is 'thickly settled', even at the time, especially in the area of what is now St Clair Shores to the north and Grosse Point to the south.

A quick glance at this succinct survey is the attention to detail that Bayfiled gives to the shoreline of the Lake. He takes great care to indicate wooded areas, marshland, sand and swamp. Several plots of land are shown as a settlement on the banks of the New Ship Channel, leading to River St. Clair, mid way between what is now Algonac to the east and Pearl Beach to the west, opposite Middle Channel. Lord Selkirk’s ‘settlement is also marked over by Great Bear Creek.

Lord Selkirk, 5th Earl of Selkirk, was noteworthy as a major sponsor of immigrant settlements in Canada, particularly at the Red River Colony 300,000 square kilometers of land along the banks of the Red River in what is now Manitoba. The whole project did not end well for Selkirk as North West Company fur traders objected to the settlement and the ensuing violence and charges of theft of land eventually broke Selkirk.

The ‘settlement’ shown on this survey is in fact Baldoon farm, which was situated on the eastern side of Chenal Escarte, at the junction of Big Bear Creek in the township of Dover. With respect to Baldoon especially, Selkirk despaired of the immediate development that he had been led to expect.

'The necessity of making an extensive drainage was only one of the contributing causes. Fever, with a score of fatalities, broke out among the settlers. Elaborate instructions and prodigal expense were so ill followed and ill directed as to occasion one of the few instances of pointed censure ever passed by Selkirk upon his agents. The benevolent and patriotic intentions of forming a Settlement in this Province have hitherto been attended with an expense more than commensurate with ten times the number of Acres prayed for. In 1809 there were scarcely eighty inhabitants in the settlement. Baldoon struggled on till the War of 1812, when it was pillaged by the Americans and Selkirk's agent was taken prisoner. During the pro-tracted litigation at Sandwich, Selkirk's own farm of 950 acres at Baldoon was sold to a Mr McNab.’#

Bayfied includes two points of Latitude and Longitude on the survey: One at Windmill Point on the north shore of the River Detroit (42º 21’ 57”, 83º 05’ 17”), and the other at the mouth of the River St Clair (42º 38’ 59”, 82º 40’ 14”). On a point of technical interest, modern satellite technology gives us: 42º 36” 29”, 82º 93” 61” and 42º 65” 62”, 82º 51” 99” respectively (with no allowance for the variation as shown).